Attorneys who
succeeded in overturning an agreement that would have granted two outdoor
advertising companies exemptions from Los Angeles city ordinances regulating
outdoor advertising are not entitled to fees under the private attorney general
statute, this district’s Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

Los Angeles
Superior Court Judge Terry Green did not abuse his discretion when he rejected
Summit Media LLC’s motion for more than $3 million in attorney fees under Code
of Civil Procedure §1021.5, Justice Elizabeth Grimes wrote for Div. Eight.

Green had
concluded that while the litigation vindicated an important public right and
benefitted the public as a whole, that benefit was not disproportionate to
Summit Media’s “enormous” personal stake in the issue. The company’s pursuit of
the litigation was largely designed to secure a level playing field with its
competitors, and only incidentally to benefit the public, the judge said.

‘Plainly
Mistaken’

Grimes said
Summit Media was “plainly mistaken” in its contention that the trial judge
based his ruling on the fact that the company could afford to bear the fees
itself.

The justice
wrote:

“The trial
court’s discussion at the hearing shows it was well aware of the legal standard
applicable to the financial burden requirement: namely, whether the
litigation imposed a financial burden that was out of proportion to plaintiff’s
individual stake in the matter. Plaintiff’s suggestion that the trial
court’s ruling was based on plaintiff’s ability to pay or on plaintiff’s lack
of altruistic motives has no support in the record.”

The fee motion
was part of litigation over a settlement agreement under which the City of Los
Angeles exempted CBS Outdoor (now Outfront Media, Inc.) and Clear Channel
Outdoor from ordinances banning the conversion of billboards to digital
displays.

Prior Opinion

Summit brought
the motion following a prior ruling by the Court of Appeal that the settlement
violated municipal ordinances. The court, in a 2012 opinion by Grimes, said
that Green should have ordered revocation of permits issued pursuant to the
agreement, which allowed CBS and Clear Channel to digitize up to 840
billboards.

In 2002 the Los
Angeles City Council established a ban on new offsite outdoor advertising signs
throughout the city and prohibited alterations or enlargements of legally
existing off-site signs. The city also established an inspection program and
assessed an annual fee to pay for it.

Vista Media
settled its claims with the city, and after various legal proceedings CBS and
Clear Channel also became parties to the settlement agreement, which, among
other things, exempted them from the inspection program and numerous zoning and
building laws regulating off-site signs in the city.

The settlement
agreement also required the city to issue new permits allowing CBS and Clear
Channel to digitize up to 840 signs, a full one-quarter of their total
inventory, despite the city’s ban on that very type of modification. It also
exempted them from the usual procedures for obtaining permits, giving their
applications precedence over the requests of other property owners in the city.

In 2008, Summit
Media, petitioned for a writ of mandate ordering the city to set aside and
cease implementing the settlement agreement.

Totally Void

Green agreed
with Summit that the settlement agreement was void for all purposes. He
rejected Summit‘s contention, however, that all permits that had been issued
pursuant to the settlement agreement should be revoked, concluding that the
issue of permit revocation was an administrative issue,

The Court of
Appeal held that Green properly voided the settlement agreement, but also ruled
that a judgment invalidating all digital conversion permits issued pursuant to
the settlement agreement would not be “grossly excessive in relation to the
harm.”

Grimes said at
the time:

“We see nothing
‘grossly excessive’ in the revocation of illegal permits issued under an
illegal settlement agreement that contravenes municipal ordinances.”

Summit then
returned to the trial court, seeking to require the defendants to demolish the
affected billboards, and to recover its attorney fees. Green, however, held
that the companies could restore the billboards to their previous, non-digital
state, and denied the fees.

The Court of
Appeal said neither ruling was an abuse of the judge’s discretion.